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Well... I had the BOM because I wanted to see how the inrush circuit worked, but then, after this thread, decided to check the cap AVL (which was on the same spreadsheet). That triggered my asking why we would have Elite as first choice and Teapo as second. I'm curious to see what the engineers have to say.

The Elite EB are actually surprisingly good... At least from what I've seen in monitor I/PBs and some chargers. EJ, hovewer... not so much. They're below even Teapo SC, let alone SZ. If it has to be Elite, ask around why not EB series, please

By specs, they're at or above SZ levels. They're relatively new, I think they've been on the market for some 6 years at the most. I already said in another thread, the life rating doesn't necessarily have much to do with actual MTBF at all.

I don't see why we are all discussing which Elite or Teapo caps would be the best. At newegg right now, the XFX XTR 550W and Coolermaster V550W are both a few dollars cheaper than the CS550M, use 100% jap caps, have better fans, and are made by better known OEMs than GreatWall.

I'm not going to make any estimations here on whether they will fail too soon or not, but I'm just saying - If XFX and CM can include entirely Jap caps in a 550W 80plus gold unit for $80, why can't Corsair (or is Newegg just marking the CS550M up more?)

I don't see why we are all discussing which Elite or Teapo caps would be the best. At newegg right now, the XFX XTR 550W and Coolermaster V550W are both a few dollars cheaper than the CS550M, use 100% jap caps, have better fans, and are made by better known OEMs than GreatWall.

I'm not going to make any estimations here on whether they will fail too soon or not, but I'm just saying - If XFX and CM can include entirely Jap caps in a 550W 80plus gold unit for $80, why can't Corsair (or is Newegg just marking the CS550M up more?)

The MSRP is roughly the same between all of them. Which means the margins on the XFX & Cooler Master units are either really low, or Corsair just likes sitting at a flat percentage on their units across the board.

I'd assume the later considering the pricing of Corsair units over the past few years, even when they were 99% identical to other ones on the market (like when they were using the original X-Series platform in the AX units.)

I'm just saying - If XFX and CM can include entirely Jap caps in a 550W 80plus gold unit for $80, why can't Corsair (or is Newegg just marking the CS550M up more?)

Another fan of one of the most frequent Spectre's critic to Corsair (I agree, to be clear)!

However, the CS-M has some minor advantage on its own (which don't overcome the quality issues), mainly the shy casing (very useful for compatibility reasons), and the maybe slightly quieter fan profile.